Intro

So, months ago, you may have heard that Yarn was a potentially better alternative to npm to manage your project dependencies. When Yarn came out, highlights included faster download speeds, the ability to cache previously downloaded packages to enable faster downloads in future projects, and a yarn.lock file that guaranteed other developers who installed your project received the same packages as you. So, here is a video comparing the two at that time: Yarn vs. npm.

Basic Yarn Commands Compared to npm

Starting a new project

npm

npm init

yarn

yarn init

Adding a dependency

npm

npm install <package>

yarn

yarn add <package>

Adding a dev dependency

npm

npm install --save-dev <package>

yarn

yarn add <package> --dev

Removing a dependency

npm

npm uninstall <package>

yarn

yarn remove <package>

Install all project dependencies

npm

npm install

yarn

yarn or yarn install

npm Version 5

You may have leaned towards Yarn as the better choice until npm recently released version 5. The newest version of npm offers faster download times and offline support for previously downloaded packages. The latest npm version also includes a package-lock.json file that allows other developers to receive the same packages as you, just like Yarn. When comparing download speeds, it appears that Yarn maybe still slightly faster than npm, but not by much. Here is a video that compares download speeds: Did npm just kill yarn?

Summary

In summary, npm and yarn are both excellent tools to manage your project dependencies. If you are already familiar with npm, it may not be necessary to jump ship and start using yarn with the new features of npm version 5. However, as always, it is a matter of personal choice, and using tools that help you get the job done is what it comes down to, and again, both are great choices.